User's Guide to Style: Voluminous Skirt

The season's most versatile skirt is full and feminine. We asked five women to tackle the trend.

Fall fashion is giving us an inflated sense of self: On the Donna Karan, Céline, and Jil Sander runways, coats, dresses, and skirts assumed oversize proportions. Our favorite way to wear the season's voluminous silhouette is as a full skirt, such as Donna Karan's surprisingly flattering one. Here, five women make the amped-up shape fit perfectly. Donna Karan New York cotton skirt, $1,095, at Donna Karan New York stores.

VERONICA MISAKO GLEDHILL

28, stylist

"I love the '50s-inspired shape of the skirt," says Gledhill. "I wanted to play it up." So she wore it over a Christian Dior crinoline to exaggerate its retro silhouette. "But it's easy for a full skirt
to become too sweet," she adds. She slipped on a corset "to add structure" and a shark-tooth necklace "to toughen up" the ladylike ensemble. "I wanted to look like a meaner Holly Golightly."

TOP
"The challenge was making a full skirt seem modern. This custom-made corset and Cushnie et Ochs sweater tee are feminine but sleek. I'd wear this to a dinner party."

ACCESSORIES
"The Balenciaga rhinestone bracelet and choker are girlie. But the tribal earrings and Nektar de Stagni pearl-and-shark-tooth necklace are more vicious-looking."